The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, invites proposals for presentations on book history, bibliography, textual criticism, readership, authorship, print culture, and (especially) book history pedagogy. Last year's conference with over 500 presentations in total, offered 5 panels on book history & textual criticism.

General Conference Theme: Voices

In addition, CEA welcomes proposals for presentations on the general conference theme, Voices.

Voices on opposing sides of the conflict culminating at the Alamo spoke for two distinctly diverse cultures. And within those cultures were voices and texts that influenced the actions during that struggle -- significant cultural markers of time, place, and being.

Before and after the struggle there, writers everywhere have reflected and influenced the events of their day, and from their experience, the great writers have created texts that have become ageless connections to what is past, or passing, or to come.

Their voices also call for us to acknowledge or recognize beauty or to realize or remember significant lessons -- perhaps via a character like Professor Farber from Fahrenheit 451 or a place like a raft on a river in Huckleberry Finn -- with an urgency no less than the Alamo's. This correspondence we find within ourselves is our human condition -- but it is the capacity to listen for and to those whose message or memory is unlike our own that makes us scholars. Our voices blend with those we admire or abhor -- creating a text, which (if it stands the test of taste and time) will blend with still other voices, like those of our students, newly discovering "a peak in Darien"-- all wishing to be heard and remembered.

In the shadow of San Antonio's famous symbol of voices that call for attention and allegiance, College English Association asks you to submit papers on any aspect of the theme of Voices.

General Call for Papers

CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English departments typically encompass, including literature, creative writing, composition, technical communication, linguistics, and film. We also welcome papers on areas that influence our work as academics, including student demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment, student advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and the place of the English department in the university.